/*
 * OREKIT-X
 * Copyright 2002-2008 CS Communication & Systemes
 * 
 * Parts of this software package have been licensed to CS
 * Communication & Systemes (CS) under one or more contributor license
 * agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with this work for
 * additional information.
 *  
 * This is an experimental copy of OREKIT from www.orekit.org.
 * Please use the original OREKIT from orekit.org for normal work
 * unrelated to this research project.
 * 
 * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you
 * may not use this file except in compliance with the License.  You
 * may obtain a copy of the License at
 *
 *   http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 *
 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or
 * implied.  See the License for the specific language governing
 * permissions and limitations under the License.
 */
package ore.time;

/** 
 * This interface represents objects that have a {@link AbsoluteDate}
 * date attached to them.
 * 
 * Classes implementing this interface can be stored chronologically
 * in sorted sets using {@link ChronologicalComparator} as the
 * underlying comparator. An example using for {@link ore.orbits.Orbit
 * Orbit} instances is given here:
 * <pre>
 *     SortedSet&lt;Orbit> sortedOrbits =
 *         new TreeSet&lt;Orbit>(new ChronologicalComparator());
 *     sortedOrbits.add(orbit1);
 *     sortedOrbits.add(orbit2);
 *     ...
 * </pre>
 * 
 * @see AbsoluteDate
 * @see ChronologicalComparator
 * @see ChronologicalSet
 * 
 * @author Luc Maisonobe
 */
public interface TimeStamped
    extends java.lang.Comparable<TimeStamped>,
            java.io.Serializable
{
    /** 
     * @return Associated date
     */
    public AbsoluteDate getDate();
}
